Xerox Responds to In-plant Complaints

Xerox technology may be a mainstay in many in-plant operations, but that doesn't mean all of them are happy about it. When the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA) surveyed its members about Xerox service, reliability and billing practices, a fair number of them gave the company lower-than-desired ratings.

Jeff Jacobson

After IPMA President Dwayne Magee shared the results with Xerox, the company expressed significant concern and a strong desire to set things right. So last Friday, several Xerox executives participated in a webinar in which they offered forthright explanations for some of the billing, ordering and outsourcing problems that have been bugging in-plants. CEO Jeff Jacobson himself participated, a sign of how valuable the in-plant market is to Xerox.

In-plants, Jacobson stressed, are a key piece of Xerox's strategy, and the company is "resolved to fix these issues." In the wake of news that Fujifilm Holdings will soon take over Xerox, he stressed that "the new Fuji Xerox will be a customer focused organization. We exist only because of our customers."

Though Jacobson had to sign off to meet with shareholders after his introductory statement, several executives stayed to answer Magee's questions on service call response times, skipped invoices and other issues. They were candid about past problems and shared insights on what Xerox is doing to fix them.

A major bone of contention, which Magee did not shy away from asking about, was Xerox's outsourcing activities, and the practice of working with organizations to shut down their in-plants. Executives acknowledged the conflict of interest — selling equipment to the in-plant, then working with others in the organization to assume control of that very in-plant — but insisted that upper management and financial officers in those organizations were the ones who requested Xerox's assistance in developing a document strategy.

Magee requested that going forward Xerox employees ask each organization's upper management if they have an in-plant and if so ask to bring that in-plant into the discussion. Executives readily agreed — a promise that IPMA fully intends to hold the company to.

Though the webinar may not have solved every issue, the honesty and candidness of Xerox executives was impressive, and their resolve to address the problems seemed sincere, a testament to the importance of the in-plant industry to the company's strategy.